Page:Bentley- Trent's Last Case (Nelson, nd).djvu/375

Rh record unrolled before you – cupidity, murder, robbery, sudden cowardice, shameless, impenitent, desperate lying! Why, you and I believed him to be guilty until—'

'I beg your pardon! I beg your pardon!' interjected Mr. Cupples, laying down his knife and fork. 'I was most careful, when we talked it all over the other night, to say nothing indicating such a belief. I was always certain that he was innocent.'

'You said something of the sort at Marlowe's just now. I wondered what on earth you could mean. Certain that he was innocent! How can you be certain? You are generally more careful about terms than that, Cupples.'

'I said "certain",' Mr. Cupples repeated firmly.

Trent shrugged his shoulders. 'If you really were, after reading my manuscript and discussing the whole thing as we did,' he rejoined, 'then I can only say that you must have totally renounced all trust in the operations of the human reason; an attitude which, while it is bad Christianity and also infernal nonsense, is oddly enough bad Positivism too, unless I misunderstand that system. Why, man—'